Today marks the premiere of “School Play” in Mamaroneck. That’s the award-winning documentary about the making of Mamaroneck Avenue School’s 2005 production of “The Wizard of Oz.” Read my story here. Since I wrote that story, I have received some updates:

Director Rick Velleu wrote me that Kathy Savolt, the mayor of Mamaroneck, proclaimed today “School Play Day” and will attend the 7 p.m. screening and give the school a proclamation.

Velleu also reports that the late screening—there are shows at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.—is likely to sell out, so if you really want to see “School Play,” the 3:30 is your best bet.

If you make it to the 7, and plan to attend the post-screening shindig at Cafe Mozart, play director Laurie Gage tells me that the tiny shop will likely be packed to the gunwales, so other businesses have stepped up to help out.

Here’s a bit of Laurie’s note:
“We hit the street and got enthusiastic support from some of the other local restaurants. They all offered to give discounts to movie ticket holders. We’re (Rick, me, Eddie and maybe a few of the kids) are going to “party hop” that night from one place to another. Red Plum will take 10 percent off the check with a ticket stub. Café Mozart, Rani Mahal and Le Provencal will each give a free glass of wine or soda.”

Tomorrow is the second live theater chat on LoHud.com.
Join me and two ladies of theater—Pat Rinello, director at Rye Neck High School and Christina DeFeo, director at Suffern High School—tomorrow for a conversation about auditions.

From 3:30 to 4 p.m., Pat, Christina and I will be at www.lohud.com/inthewingslive and will take your questions and comments. If you go to the site, you can log on and join the conversation. Do you wonder what directors look for, how one actor or actress is chosen over another, how they find the right mix of talent? If so, wonder know more. Log on and check it out.

You can view our first chat—with Stepinac’s Frank Portanova and Eastchester’s John Gwardyak—  ON DEMAND at www.lohud.com/inthewingslive. When you see the video link, click the ON DEMAND button beneath it.

Come along for the ride. And speaking of that, look for another exciting and interactive feature, a blog written by local actresses, in coming days.

LaChanze, Mount Vernon’s Tony-winner and the star of “The Color Purple,” “Ragtime,” “Company,” “Once On This Island,” “Uptown it’s Hot!,” “The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds her Chameleon Skin,” and “The Vagina Monologues,” will play a one-night-only engagement at the Highline Ballroom on Valentine’s Day at 7 p.m. — “LaChanze Sings About Love.”
The Highline is at 431 W. 16th St., Manhattan. Call 212-414-5994 or go to www.highlineballroom.com.

Mamaroneck will have its moment on the big screen on Thursday when “School Play” — a documentary about the Mamaroneck Avenue School’s 2005 production of “The Wizard of Oz” — gets its hometown premiere at the Clearview Mamaroneck Playhouse.

There will be two screenings of Rick Velleu’s award-winning film — at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. — a fund-raiser for the school’s theater program. After the late show, a reception will be held at Cafe Mozart, with 25 percent of the dinner tabs going to the theater program.

“Doubt: A Parable,” John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play now on stage at Nyack’s cozy Elmwood Playhouse, is a turf war in what might seem the unlikeliest of places.

It pits Sister Aloysius, the principal at the fictional St. Nicholas School in the Bronx in 1964, against the young Father Flynn, a newcomer to St. Nicholas.

She has the school; he has the pulpit. She has the classrooms; he has the rectory, into which nuns are not permitted.
She follows the old ways, the old rules, the certainty of routine and long-held traditions.

We’re starting something new Wednesday when I’ll be joined in our studio by Stepinac’s director Frank Portanova and Eastchester’s director John Gwardyak. We’ll be talking about how directors choose their high-school musicals. You can tune to www.lohud.com/inthewingslive and post questions for them or for me and we’ll try to answer them the best we can. The live show airs Wednesday, from 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. (After that, you can watch it on demand.)

I’m still lining up next week’s guests, but Rye Neck’s Pat Rinello is already signed on. We’ll talk about auditions. If you’ve got an audition coming up, why not pick the brain of one of the region’s top directors?

Tune in this Wednesday, Jan. 14, for choosing a musical and next Wednesday, Jan. 21, for auditions.

Due to the weather, tonight’s Little Village Playhouse performance of “Merrily We Roll Along” has been canceled. There will be an added performance tomorrow, Sunday, Jan. 11 at 8 p.m. All Saturday tickets will be honored at the door.

If the cast of the Little Village Playhouse production of “Merrily We Roll Along” knows the Stephen Sondheim show forward and backward, there’s a reason: The show is told in reverse chronological order.

“Merrily” – which the Pleasantville-based troupe presents at the Irvington Town Hall Theater on Friday and Saturday – tells the story of composer and movie producer Frank Shepard and how he got where he is.

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The 23rd season of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival includes an old favorite, a new favorite and a show artistic director Terrence O’Brien will tackle for the first time.

Performances will begin June 20 and, while the exact order of openings is not set yet, O’Brien hopes to open the three shows — “Pericles: Prince of Tyre,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” — in consecutive weeks.

“We’ll be running repertory the entire summer,” O’Brien says. “It’ll be great for the actors who enjoy switching parts, doing one play one night and doing something hopefully very different another night. And with the third play, people actually get to have a night off every so often.”

Long before she agreed to become its new executive director, Lisa Reilly knew about the Emelin Theater.

“I knew it by reputation,” says Reilly. (That’s her at right, with Emelin co-presidents Seth Kaplan and Mark Ettenger, in a photo by Ricky Flores of The Journal News.) When she ran New York State Council on the Arts panels, the Emelin was often held up as a model for children’s programming.

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Some actors work inside out, digging deep inside themselves to find the emotions they’ll need to bring a character to life.

Others work outside in. They find a bit of costume, a pair of shoes, a hat that helps them become the character.

For Molly Brown, a 15-year-old from South Salem, months of inside-out work was ratcheted up when she first put on the face makeup that turned her from a kid to a cat. The high school sophomore will take to the stage alongside more than 70 other kids this weekend at Westchester Broadway Theater in Elmsford for the Lighthouse Youth Arts Center production of “Cats.”

Westchester psychoanalyst Marvin Lifschitz’s play, “Freudian Slips,” will be given its world premiere at the Abingdon Theatre Company, with previews starting Jan. 24 and opening night set for Feb. 1.

Directed by Tom Bloom, “Freudian Slips” is a comedy about love, life and, of course, Sigmund Freud. It will run through Feb. 15 at the Abingdon’s Dorothy Strelsin Theatre, at 312 W. 36th St., 1st Floor (between 8th and 9th Avenues).

Archbishop Stepinac High School Drama Club hopes to break plenty of ground with its musical this year when it presents what they’re calling the high-school, regional and (possibly) European premiere of the Kander & Ebb musical, “Curtains,” which includes a book and additional lyrics by Rockland native and Westchester resident Rupert Holmes

The men’s roles are to be filled by Stepinac’s talented actors, but the women’s roles are open and director Frank Portanova will cast the female roles at two auditions, Jan. 13 and 15.

Got a note from Barbara Marks, whom I’ve seen in a couple of shows here and there.

“Proscenium Players will present a reading of Terrence McNally’s “It’s Only a Play” on Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the Katonah Memorial Hall, 71 Bedford Road, Katonah.  Come and enjoy a free glass of wine and a wonderful play reading of this hilarious work about the backstage antics of a Broadway cast!  Directed by Alan D. Marks, with a cast including Keith DiBuono, Andrea Garmun, Barbara Marks, Meghan McGrath, Larry Reina, John Thompson, Anthony Valbiro and Peter Wood.  $5 at the door.  For reservations, e-mail ProscPlayers@aol.com. (Highly recommended as space is limited).

The Armonk Players will present Simply Theatre! Play Readings — including a playlet from “Lovers and Other Strangers” by Renee Taylor & Joseph Bologna and “A Marriage Proposal” by Anton Chekov, both directed by Pia Haas — at 8 p.m. on Jan. 14. Admission is free, but voluntary donations are cheerfully accepted.